


Night

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, Kid Fic, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2019-09-29 21:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17210921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Mush wants to get to know the new kid at the lodging house. Skittery thinks Mush needs to learn a thing or two about privacy. Featuring a very very young Blink and Mush.





	Night

_Not everybody wants company all the time._

That was one of life’s best kept secrets, and Mush had learned it just the other day, ‘cause Skittery had told him so real directly. It made sense. It made just about enough sense to change everything . It was like this: Mush wanted company all the time because he was a real friendly guy, and life was a lot more fun when you had somebody to talk to; Crutchy darn well near liked company better than anything else in the world, except for when it was early morning and he was just waking up. Lots and lots of guys were up for a joke or a game, but didn’t want to shout through the shower door while they were washing up in the morning. Way way off on the other side of everything, so far off that he was practically on the moon, there was Skittery, who was real particular about when he’d spend time with earth kids and when he wouldn’t. Mush tried telling Skittery this, but Skits just said that he felt like he was buried under the earth, not way up above it with the stars and the birds. He also told Mush to go away and shut up.

There was a new kid at the lodging house, and Mush honest to goodness had been losing sleep trying to figure out what type he was - if he was buried in the earth, flying above it, or walking around on his own two legs, looking for friends to walk with him. Tonight especially, Mush was losing a whole wagon load of sleep over everything, because it was getting late, and nobody was awake except for Mush and the new kid. He was a few bunks away from Mush, down at the bottom so it was easy for Mush to watch him. The boy’s eyes – or his eye, the one that wasn’t covered up with a pirate’s patch – looked bloodshot even in the low light, and he was shuffling and reshuffling a deck of ragged playing cards over and over. Sometimes he’d flop back against the pillow and shut his eyes for just a couple of seconds, but then he always jolted himself back awake, gathered the cards up off his stomach, and started shuffling again.

Mush tried to roll over and stop looking. Nights were for privacy. Some kids talked in their sleep, and he wasn’t supposed to notice. Others had nightmares, and unless you were their best pal, you just had to pretend like you didn’t see. All kinds of things happened at night when everyone was crammed in together like sardines, and you had to understand that not everybody liked being a sardine, even if you saw plenty of potential for goodness and old-fashioned camaraderie in it.

Skittery had told Mush that too. Actually, what he’d said was, “Don’t assume, just ‘cause a fellow farted in their sleep, that they’s awake and wanna blabber away with you about hot air balloons.”

Mush hadn’t asked Skittery about hot air balloons. He’d asked him whether or not bees could taste the difference in different sorts of flowers, the way people could taste the difference between steamed peas and steamed carrots.

With his eyes closed, Mush couldn’t hear the kid shuffling his cards, not over the sound of Racetrack’s snoring anyways. He could feel it though, and he could imagine the cards and the boy just as clearly as if he were still looking at him. Sure enough, as soon as Mush peeked over at the boy again, he saw him with his cards, just the same as he’d looked in Mush’s mind, very alone and very sad.

Being alone could make people sad. Mush was sure if it, no matter what Skittery said. Being alone could make some people so sad that the entire world seemed hopeless, and there was only one way for Mush to find out if this boy was one of them. He hopped down from his bunk, and crouched down next to the boy.

“Hey,” he whispered. “You having a good night? Can you teach me how to play?”

The boy jumped like he’d been startled out of a deep sleep, and threw his cards in Mush’s face.

“Sorry,” Mush told him. He wasted no time in bending down on the ground and picking the cards up. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Here’s your cards. Sorry I scared you. I’m Mush. I’ll go back to bed, huh? My bed’s over that way.”

Mush waited, until the boy reached out and took the cards.

“It ain’t a game,” the boy said. “It’s just… Hey, do you know any good games?”

“All of them.” Mush smiled, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Well,” he added upon further reflection, “only about five, I guess. There’s probably more. Do you wanna play?”

The boy smiled, and it was hard for Mush to say why, but he was sure at that moment that he and this boy were the same in some way, and that they were going to be passing a lot of time together.


End file.
